


Running Into a Memory

by ncfan



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Deal With the Devil, Denial, Despair, Doomed Timelines, Due to the Dead, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Gore, Guilt, Isolation, Mid-Canon, Parent Death, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Supernatural Elements, Time Loop, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-22
Updated: 2013-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-12 16:23:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 12,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/493256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncfan/pseuds/ncfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Puella Magi Madoka Magica drabbles and oneshots. Characters and pairings will vary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Why 'Puella Magi?'

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter is not meant as an attack on anyone who doesn't use the term "Puella Magi." I am simply running with the term on the assumption that Kyubey uses it and explaining why he uses it.

Chapter One: _Why 'Puella Magi?'_

It amazes Kyubey sometimes how little humans question things, if he could feel such a thing as surprise. They go about their lives never questioning anything when they really ought to. They show a truly remarkable lack of curiosity. The young females with whom he contracts are just a prime example of the ignorance of humankind.

There's the Irregular, Akemi Homura, who doesn't seem to be at all interested in finding out which gender Kyubey subscribes to and simply refers to him as an "it." There's Tomoe Mami, who doesn't bother to ask if she can make her wish to bring her parents back as well. There's Sakura Kyouko, who didn't think to consider whether her father would respond positively to the effects of her wish. There's Miki Sayaka, who didn't consider that anonymously healing her little crush's arm wasn't going to change his feelings towards her. There's Kaname Madoka, who doesn't bother to ask why Akemi Homura is so intent on her _not_ becoming a Puella Magi.

_It's amazing how few questions they ask about their own lives, and the whole process of becoming Puellae Magi. I would have thought that they would have at least asked me about the name._

Upon being given his marching orders, Kyubey was assigned to the nation of Japan and told that, so long as he met his quota, he was to be given free rein to meet his quota however he saw fit.

No Incubator will tell those whom they contract with any more than is absolutely necessary, unless the girls who agree to the contract have questions that can be answered. They will be told exactly what they need to know, and nothing more. All these young females need to know is that they will contract to fight Witches in exchange for a wish granted, any wish that they like. They will know that they must regularly clean their Soul Gems with the Grief Seeds they take from defeated Witches, and that if they do not, the consequences will be dire. Unless they inquire further, that's all Kyubey tells them.

Kyubey is not a fool by any stretch of the word. He suspects that if the young girls who become Puellae Magi knew that they were doomed to become Witches before contracting, he would not be able to meet his quota. Therefore, steps are taken.

Using the words that he does is not deception by the standards of the Incubators. It ought not to be deception by anyone's standards, regardless of what these young girls think. Latin is truly such an elegant language, and calling them "Puellae Magi" gives the whole thing an air of mystery and the fantastical that Kyubey knows from experience is highly appealing to his target audience.

If he uses "mahou shoujo", a reasonably intelligent girl wouldn't take long to make the connection with "magical girl" and "witch." Using Latin instead, even Latin that is not quite grammatically correct to translate into "magical girl", they look upon this as being just like something out of one of the television shows they seem so obsessed with. And indeed, if any of the girls he meets knows their Latin, "Puella Magi" ought to make sense, properly translated as "the sorcerer's girl", or, in a stretch of the language "girl form of the sorcerer." It will all make sense if they just think to ask.

_It's not deception_ , Kyubey thinks, in response to all of the accusations he has ever received in the past. _All they have to do is ask. I would tell them readily, if they asked. If they do not, that is their own loss._


	2. myth of the hourglass

Walpurgisnacht, great Queen of Witches, scourge of the earth. She who makes her appearance on the stage once every hundred years to the screams of her audience. When she appears on the stage, her play becomes a tragedy of death and destruction, and all who know her look upon her clockwork form and despair.

The helpless fool who spins about in circles, she barely seems to notice the havoc that she wreaks on everything she touches. Her laughs that are not laughs ( _are they sobs, is she weeping? No one ever survives long to wonder._ ) shatter the windows and send buildings on their sides, as she looks for someone to watch her tale, to validate all her fruitless struggles. That's all she wants, validation. Who cares if the world burns? Who cares if she sets it all on fire? If she can get just one person to listen to her tale, none of this will matter.

She was a strong girl, once. Once, an eternity ago, she was a strong girl. Not this helpless fool. She had taken it upon herself to be strong, and would never find herself the plaything of fate.

But no matter how strong she was, no matter how she strived to change her world, she couldn't do a thing. She couldn't save her loved ones from dying, couldn't change the cruel hand of fate she had been dealt. She could only watch as they all died, could only watch as they slipped further and further away from her, until they were strangers to her, and she, to them.

Her strength had meant nothing.

None of this seemed real anymore. The actions were forced and she knew all the lines. It kept happening, over and over again. A play, it was like a play.

 _That's all this is,_ she realized one day. _It's just a play._ And with that knowledge, she was free.

She was just a girl once, and just a normal Witch once. She cursed humanity as they had once cursed her, spreading her influence in small and subtle ways. She grew stronger by her newfound cannibalism, but the paradox was that as she grew into a stronger Witch, she merely became more helpless. The loss of identity with all of these other consciousnesses jumbling around in her head, the confusion, it only made her even more helpless than before.

They, Walpurgisnacht and all the Witches she had devoured, they all had one thing in common. They all wanted to put an end to their pain.

Walpurgisnacht can't bring an end to pain, not hers nor anyone else's. She can, however, fashion a great, ghostly parade to distract herself from the clamor and the constant torment—it is only her pain she cares about, hers and no one else's. The grand play, never-ending, will be the balm to her gaping wounds.

The little ants who sting at her will now dance for her instead and serve as the guardians to the stage, ensuring that no one will defile her sacrosanct tale. And she will watch, she, great Queen of Witches, will watch, and her giggles will sound like sobs.

None of this has any hope of granting her real peace. The bright colors, the pretty lights, the actors diving back and forth, it's the Witch's illusion. When she realizes that, that none of this is real and only the products of her great hand, she makes the living things around her pay for her disappointment. This is a far more entertaining play; the ants' scurrying is at least spontaneous.

And she, great Queen of Witches, has come to this place, at this time, for one reason.

For _her._

Walpurgisnacht is one half of an hourglass, reaching down. She is incomplete, and growing more fragmented by the second. Here, she knows there will come on, a Witch of terrible power and beauty, one who will stretch her hands up to towards her. She promises to put an end to Walpurgisnacht's pain, to make her herself again, to rid herself of all the voices, all the pain, all the artificiality.

She who wishes to put an end to all suffering, she is the only one who promises an end to the pain, who promises to let Walpurgisnacht rest in peace. Whether her solution is bliss or oblivion, Walpurgisnacht does not care anymore—and really, is there such a difference between the two? Either way, Walpurgisnacht will rest in peace.

Her other half is coming, the only one who can make her whole again, the only one who can give meaning to this plastic play. And when she finally makes her appearance, her terrible beauty lighting up the stage, Walpurgisnacht will cease her giddy laughter-weeping long enough to say:

_I have finally found you. My dearest love, you've come back for me at last. You didn't forget me after all._


	3. Summer Fades

You know about Tomoe Mami? No? Well, that's not surprising. I've asked around, and it seems like barely anyone knows her. She just sort of faded away, backed down off the stage. It's hard; just finding anyone who knows that name is hard.

She's gone now. Mami hasn't shown up to school in more than a week; her desk is empty and gathering dust. Our homeroom teacher has stopped calling her name when attendance is taken. Her name is never spoken now, and aside from that empty desk, there's no evidence that she ever existed at all; that existence has been expunged from the records.

But I do remember her.

I was friend once. I know, that seems hard to believe. Even if no one _knows_ Tomoe Mami, anyone who has ever heard of her knows at least one thing about her: Tomoe Mami has no friends. No friends at all.

There's no small amount of speculation as to why, since no one knows her well enough to say for sure. Some people suppose that she must have a really unpleasant disposition. Some think that her parents bar her from having any friends, or that they don't think anyone's good enough to be their daughter's friend. Others think she's too shy to seek people out. Still more suspect that she has so many after-school activities to have time for friends.

None of it's true.

I was her friend once, and I can tell you that none of it was true. Mami was neither shy nor unfriendly. Her parents were doting and indulgent; she had no after-school activities that would have kept her from making friends.

We were good friends. Not "beg to sleep over at her house every Friday" sort of friends, nor "do absolutely everything together" friends, but good friends nonetheless. We would go to movies, study for tests together. I'd eat over at her house occasionally; she'd eat over at mine about as much. We giggled over magazines and gasped over decadent cakes in the pastry shop together. She and I, and a couple of other girls, we moved in the same crowd, and we called ourselves friends.

" _Ayumu-chan, come look at this!" Mami calls from across the store._

_I run over to see what she's spotted. When my eyes fall on her, she's holding in her hands the cutest yellow dress I've ever seen and wearing beaming smile. "You think I should get it?" she asks with a giggle._

" _Yeah, definitely."_

That's how we were once. She was a great friend, always knew when to ask you to do things and when not to. Always there with a kind shoulder if you needed a good cry. You could just tell that she was striving to be the perfect friend and the kindest person, even to people she barely knew or had no reason to love.

Mami was like summer. She was warm and sunny, with barely a cloud on the horizon in any direction. She was accommodating and knew how to be the best-liked of anyone's friends, just like summer is the best-beloved season of the year.

Of course, for us to be having this conversation now, all of that had to change.

Mami lost her parents. There… There was a horrible car wreck; I think the headlines said there were at least six people killed. Mami was the only survivor. She escaped miraculously unharmed, but came out drenched in her parents' blood. I can only imagine what that must have been like for her.

At the wake, she would look no one in the eye and would acknowledge no word of consolation. She sat in a chair in front of the caskets, slim figure, all in black, and kept her head bowed. After a while, no one dared speak to her anymore. No one came near. I did not dare approach her.

Mami didn't say a word during the wake. She kept her silence as her parents' ashes were interred beneath the earth. She looked like nothing so much as she did a porcelain doll with glassy, staring eyes. Too devoid of life to scream, wail or even cry. She walked home alone after it was all over, back to a too-spacious apartment that was now hers alone.

During all this time, my mother kept a hand on my shoulder to keep me where I was, but I could have gone up and spoken to her if I'd found the nerve. Could have hugged her, tried to whisper comforting things in her ear. Though she gave no sign of being alive in those days, I tell myself that she would have appreciated the effort. Mami was always so caring; then would have been the perfect time to try to repay her for all the times she had comforted me when I was frustrated or sad.

But I already told you: I didn't. I didn't dare go near her. On that day, I was terrified of her. Imagine that, being terrified of sweet, kind Tomoe Mami! But I was. She didn't seem human, seemed like a hard, cold porcelain doll, and I was terrified of her.

Maybe she sensed the fear I had of her in those days. Maybe that was the reason for what happened later.

By the time Mami started going to school again, she had recovered her smile. Only I, our teachers, and a handful of others had any idea why she had been absent; no one else was very curious. She had stood up at the beginning of class with a sweet smile on her face, apologizing for having been gone and asking if she could have the work she'd missed, and it was like no tragedy had ever occurred in her life. She certainly didn't do anything to make others curious.

I tried to act like nothing had happened, like the reason she had been absent for a week was nothing more serious than a bout of flu. I had thought that she would appreciate that. I had thought she would appreciate being given the chance to behave as though her parents were still alive and her life was still an untroubled one.

She nodded to me when I ran up to her, said my name, but her eyes were distant, and she stared right through me. Mami said a few absent words, smiling vaguely, but after less than a minute of talking about things that don't matter anymore, she gave a few flimsy excuses, and walked away.

It was like a stranger had robbed her of her flesh and was wearing it as a coat. The rosy flush was gone from her now-waxen cheeks, and her once-bright eyes were now dull as hundred-year-old marbles. She seemed many shades faded from the vivid color she once had, and she treated me with only a little more familiarity than you would afford a stranger.

It hurts, you know? It hurts when one of your friends suddenly starts treating you like that. As the days and weeks wore on, it only got worse, and it hurt even more. It hurts when your friend starts to pull away from you. It hurts when no matter how much you apologize, plead, and beg, she won't even tell you what it is you did that was so bad that she won't talk to you anymore.

The other girls Mami had been friends with were bothered by it too, but not nearly as much as I was. They just shrugged their shoulders and said that Mami had experienced a terrible loss; it was perfectly natural for her to detach herself from everything. She'll staring hanging out with us again eventually, they said. Until then, you should give her some space; she'll come back eventually.

But you know what? She never did. She never got any friendlier with us, only more distant. Eventually, she stopped talking to us altogether.

Tomoe Mami isn't here anymore. Her desk sits empty, and the teacher doesn't call her name when taking attendance. I look over at that empty place, but to the rest of the world, she may as well have never existed at all. Just finding someone who knows her name is a struggle.


	4. an ordinary day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to Deedsu at fanfiction.net.
> 
> This is set several years in the past, while the main cast was still in elementary school.

__"…And this is Giselle, and this is Chloe."

Sayaka breathes an internal sigh of relief as Hitomi finally finishes introducing her to all her dolls. She'd thought the list would never end.

As can be gathered by her presence at the other girl's house, Sayaka and Hitomi are having a play date this fine summer's day. Their mothers needed to talk about something or other, and thought it would be convenient to have their daughters play while they talked. Sayaka doesn't care a great deal about the niceties of _why_ she's here. She's just happy to be here.

Sayaka likes playing at Hitomi's house better than anywhere else, though, to be honest, she's closer to Madoka and Kyousuke than she is to Hitomi; certainly, Hitomi is a dear friend, just not the dearest. While Sayaka lives in a spacious apartment and Madoka and Kyousuke in big houses, this is just better. There's no one on her floor at the apartment complex to play with, and while Madoka and Kyousuke's houses are nice, they don't have much in the way of a yard.

However, this house has everything. It's ridiculously big—Sayaka couldn't tell you how many rooms there are here, and if she was feeling particularly reckless, she could probably get lost in here for the rest of time. There's a television and a big stereo, and plenty of slick floors to slide on when wearing socks.

But most importantly, there's a yard. An insanely huge yard. It's got trees with low-lying branches to climb in, bushes to hide in when playing hide-and-seek. It even has a fish pond, the iridescent scales of the koi glittering on sunny days. And today is the most perfect, mild summer's day Sayaka has seen yet this year. It's perfect "play outside in your yard" weather.

Yet, they remain inside.

_This is torture._

Sayaka would like for no one to misunderstand the situation. Yes, Hitomi's room is nice. It's very nice, in fact. She's got more board games than anyone Sayaka knows, piled high on a shelf in her roomy closet. However, they never play any of these board games—Hitomi probably doesn't know how to play half of them. Hitomi just insists on playing with her collection of porcelain dolls.

They're very pretty dolls, Sayaka will admit. Likely very expensive too, with their velvet and satin dresses, their perfect china faces, their real human hair. They're also very _creepy_ dolls, whose glass eyes never blink, and always stare. Sayaka feels like their collective gazes follow her about the room, no matter where she is or where they are.

_How is she not noticing how creepy they are? And why are we in here, when we could be outside?_

Sayaka knows she's supposed to be polite. She's a guest here; she is absolutely supposed to be polite. Whatever Hitomi wants to do, Sayaka ought to be happy to do it. But she can't stand it. There's a great, big yard outside, and they're not in it. She just can't stand it.

The young girl reaches up and tugs gently on her friend's wrist. "Come on, Hitomi. Let's go play outside."

For a moment, Sayaka is met with wide, forest green eyes, and she winces at the astonished look on Hitomi's face. _Oh boy, was that rude? Hitomi's not the sort to get mad, but was it rude? Mom'll kill me if it was rude and she finds out._

Then, the moment passes, and Sayaka breathes another sigh of relief—an audible one, this time—as Hitomi's astonishment vanishes and is replaced by a shy smile. "Okay."

They go racing down the stairs, Sayaka clutching Hitomi's hand to keep her from slowing down or changing her mind and turning back. As they pass their mothers in the living room, quietly sipping their tea, Hitomi stops, and Sayaka is forced to stop with her.

"Mother?" Hitomi asks quietly, staring down at her socked feet, and Sayaka frowns; _wasn't she calling her "Mommy" the last time I was over here?_ "Is it alright if Sayaka-san and I go play outside?"

Hitomi's mother nods, never looking up from her tea. "Of course. Just don't get your dress dirty."

"Thank you."

"Play nicely!" Sayaka's mother calls after them as they head out the door.

Once outside, Sayaka puts up a hand to block the too-bright sunlight; after having been inside, it really is a shock. She's grinning though. _Finally._ Finally, Sayaka can be out in the sun.

"Let's go sit under the big tree," Hitomi suggests once she gets her shoes on, standing up and dusting off her skirt. She nods towards the huge old oak tree a little ways from the house, the one with wind whispering softly through its overgrown branches.

Sayaka hesitates, having to clamp down on her tongue to keep from insisting on something else. In all honesty, she would rather play tag on a day like this, and knows that Hitomi wouldn't refuse her if she asked. But she also knows that most outside games will end up getting their clothes dirty, and doesn't want to get Hitomi in trouble with her mother.

 _It's fine just being outside,_ she tells herself, though the taste of sitting during all her time outside instead of playing is bitter on her tongue.

Reluctantly, Sayaka nods, and they go sit on the soft grass.

Silence falls between them—it always does, when there are no distractions, no artificial things to fill the gap. Hitomi isn't exactly an expert conversationalist, and Sayaka really doesn't know how to break awkward silences. The former runs the eyeleted hem of her dress through her fingers; the latter fidgets uncomfortably, and starts to think.

Sayaka really does feel sorry for Hitomi sometimes. She's not allowed to wear anything but dresses, ever (Sayaka is increasingly grateful for parents who let her wear tank tops and shorts), and she always has to wear tights to school, no exception. Her parents are determined to make her into the perfect lady, and to that end Hitomi goes to so many after-school classes that she barely as any time left afterwards to spend with her friends.

Of course, Hitomi never complains about any of this. Sayaka doesn't think she's ever heard Hitomi complain about anything in her life, not even that time when Kyousuke accidentally spilled orange juice on her dress at lunch. Hitomi just smiled as he apologized profusely—a highly strained smile, to be sure, tears springing to her eyes, but still a smile—and said "Don't worry, Kamijou-kun; _of course_ it's alright." She just goes through life with that gentle, slightly bland smile on her face, and never complains, even in situations where surely, she isn't happy.

Sometimes… Okay, not sometimes, more like a lot of the time, Sayaka knows it would be more fun playing with Madoka or Kyousuke. They don't have the same restrictions put on them—Madoka's parents are really easygoing, and Kyousuke, being a boy, is expected to roughhouse. Sayaka can run around the streets with those two, can play tag with those two. They can get their clothes dirty without fear of being scolded by their parents.

"Sayaka-san?"

Sayaka is drawn from her musings by Hitomi's hesitant voice. The other girl's shoulders are drawn up, and she stares down at the ground, lips caught somewhere between a smile and neutrality. "Will you come over again some time soon?"

It would probably be more fun to play with Madoka and Kyousuke. But Hitomi, who has barely any time for anything but work, gets lonely much more easily than they do. Sayaka knows she'd be a horrible friend if she neglected someone who was so clearly lonely.

The blue-haired girl smiles. "Sure."


	5. Teardrops

It's been a long time since Kyouko was last moved by the sight of tears. To the sight of a woman weeping, a man choking back his tears or a child wailing, she feels little sympathy. Instead, she scoffs, mocks them and moves on. That simple expression means nothing to her anymore.

Kyouko's apathy towards tears, she surmises, might have something to do with the fact that people use them for so many things nowadays that their very existence has become hackneyed.

People cry when they're sad.

When they're angry.

Remorseful.

Sick.

In pain.

In love.

When they've been passed over for a promotion at work and they've gotten too drunk to remember why it mattered at all.

When they're happy.

Tears were most effective, Kyouko thinks, when their use was restricted to expressions of sorrow. Now that they're not, she can't even tell why a person's crying and why their faces are scrunched up and red. She doesn't know why she's supposed to care. But then again, Kyouko hasn't cared about much since her hands were stained with her family's blood.

_Let the world weep and wail. Let them wet the earth with their tears. They're all obsessed with a trite expression of grief. The meanings all run together in my head. They couldn't tell you what their tears mean anymore and I don't care about meaningless rituals. There is nothing in this world worth getting worked up over._

_Tears are just a cry for attention that have lost all meaning. It's like how a word becomes noise if it's repeated too much. A teardrop is just a trickle of water leaking from the eye. It's been used so much that it's all just background noise._

If to ignore tears is to have a heart of stone, than Kyouko knows that her heart has been constructed from the hardest, toughest rock in all of Creation. She ignores it all.

Mami's tears when she realizes she's going to be alone again. _Kyouko feels a faint twinge in her stony heart, but ignores it, and does not look at her face._

Madoka's tears of fear to see her brash friend launch into battle. _At this, Kyouko can only smirk nastily and launch her spear._

The tears shed by those set to be devoured by Familiars. _Come on, come on. Just one more human, and you'll be a Witch ready to drop a Grief Seed. I don't care how much they weep. Just one more life to take. Kill them, eat them, do whatever you like. Just take that life so you can become a creature worth killing._

And the wetness sometimes found on her cheeks when she wakes. _Kyouko would like to say that she never remembers her dreams. That's a lie. She remembers all too well, and feigns ignorance so she doesn't have to remember the blood-soaked realm of her dreaming nights._

She has ignored it all, the young girl who has a heart harder than foundations of the earth. Human suffering does not move her to pity. If anything, Kyouko feels joy to see those whom she once called her fellow human beings struggle and toil. That's the only entertaining thing, really, the macabre play of death.

Except when there comes the day when one tear, one solitary tear, is enough to make her scream.

Kyouko doesn't know what it is about Sayaka. She still finds her just as naïve, annoying and offensive as she had upon meeting the girl. Kyouko can easily recognize Mami's words being thrown out of Sayaka's mouth— _Can't even form an independent thought, can you, you miserable little puppet?_ There's something about that idealism that irritates Kyouko so much— _maybe because once, once Kyouko had admired Mami too, and she had spewed out that regurgitated philosophy with reckless abandon too._

Girls like Sayaka, these girls are what Kyouko sees as the flimsiest people of all. She's like a parody of herself, a cheap caricature. Kyouko can't believe it when she realizes that Sayaka actually believes every word coming out of her mouth, can't believe that she can proclaim this unrealistic ideology and believe every word of it.

Why bother killing Familiars? They don't drop Grief Seeds, and if you're a weak Puella Magi like Sayaka, you'll only exhaust yourself and either find yourself too corrupted to go on or be so tired when you finally get to the Witch that you die in battle against it. Killing the Witch responsible for the Familiars usually wraps up the problem of a Witch's minions trying to kill human beings. Two birds with one stone. You don't have to go about like that. Really, killing all the Familiars first instead of killing the being responsible for them, is just a stupid, pointless way to go about things.

If Kyouko had to pin down exactly what Sayaka's deal is, she would attribute it to a combination of two things.

One, is that Sayaka is disgustingly overzealous. She wants to honor Mami's memory and stay true to her own morals; all fine and well, but the extent to which she takes it can't be a signal of anything but obsession. Plain, simple, unhealthy obsession. She's warped her mind with her own thoughts.

Two, is that Sayaka thinks she's in a T.V. show, and she thinks that the world adheres to the laws of television. There's nothing Kyouko can say, except: _Stupid!_

A girl like that needs to have her illusions shattered if she ever plans on living long enough to make a dent in the local Witch population. This Kyouko attempts, bluntly, of course; Kyouko isn't really capable of doing anything gently, not anymore, and a girl like Sayaka will just blow off anything short of a sledgehammer hitting her on the side of the head.

Kyouko had just wanted to disillusion her. Not out of any sort of kindness—at least, not at first—but because Kyouko simply couldn't stand to listen to the girl yapping.

But then, it just happened. Bam!

It was that night on the bridge that made Kyouko re-evaluate some things, that made her think _We were both played for fools. Maybe… Maybe we aren't so different._

_And you know, we might end up as Witches in the end, but that doesn't mean we have to spend every moment of every day until then moping about it. That'll just speed up our fall. Come on, idiot, buck up! Don't keep acting in this weirdly subdued way. This isn't like you. Aren't you supposed to be the "champion of justice?" Champions of justice don't act like their whole world has just fallen apart. Even if it has._

She had just meant to disillusion Sayaka. Kyouko had said nothing about dragging her down completely.

But it happened. It had.

And now, there's one tear that means more to Kyouko than anything has in a long time.

After all, it was that tear that was the ending of Sayaka's world.

And now, Kyouko knows exactly what to do.

Mami is too dead to be of any help to her, and Homura too much of a coward. The latter just goes on and on about how it's impossible to save Sayaka and how it can't be done and how she won't get involved in a fool's errand. _If you go to her, then kill her,_ the girl says. _Don't try to save the one who's already dead._

Kyouko snarls and stalks away. If Homura won't help her, then she knows someone who will.

For the life of her, Kyouko doesn't know what it was she and Sayaka had. They weren't lovers, weren't close, and couldn't even be called friends, not really. They had traded blades more often than they had kind glances or understanding words. The two girls had barely started to move past challenging each other to a fight every time they saw each other when Sayaka's Soul Gem exploded under the weight of its own grief.

And yet…

And yet, all Kyouko wants to do now is save her.

She remembers something she'd forgotten up to this day. Kyouko remembers that she had been much like Sayaka once—never as overzealous, never as blindly idealistic, but she had been like her once. Maybe that was truly what had so irritated Kyouko about the girl, that she could see her own past shining out from behind Sayaka's blue eyes, and it hurt to even think about remembering.

Kyouko had been much like this fallen girl once, and she knows that if she had learned the truth back then, she would have ended up just the same as Sayaka.

" _I really am… such an idiot."_

The tear that fell with that assertion is the only one that means anything to Kyouko anymore, because out of all the tears she has ever seen, this is the only one that ever had a voice of its own. Sayaka's despair had been so great that even her tears could harness a voice and wail. Now, later, she feels a weight on her own heart and knows the visage that weight bears. If she saves Sayaka, brings her back from the abyss, Kyouko knows that weight will disappear, or at least lighten enough that it won't feel as though her heart is Atlas, bearing the weight of the world on its shoulders.

The past doesn't matter anymore ( _Even though it dictates every action she takes_ ). The past that featured Sakura Kyouko and Miki Sayaka as enemies no longer matters at all. Kyouko only sets her eyes on the future as she walks forwards into the roiling chaos of Sayaka's Witch barrier.

All she wants to do is save her, just as that single tear had cried out, too late, for her to do.

Because Kyouko knows that Sayaka shouldn't have ended up like her.

 


	6. anthem for pipe dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to andyjay18 at fanfiction.net

She looks up when she hears two pairs of footsteps nearing her, and she recognizes the two newcomers— _Homura-chan and that red-haired_ girl, she registers dully—more by their silhouettes than by their faces. The sheer darkness around them, despite the fact that they're so near a rail yard, so near a neighborhood, is really quite striking. Madoka doesn't expect to be able to see stars, not through all the smog, but really, there are street lamps around here. It all ought to be so well-lit.

_Wait… What's that she's carrying…_

_Sayaka-chan!_

But no. All is darkness, except for the light that inexplicably lies on Sayaka, leaving her the only thing Madoka can see.

It's funny. When she had first learned of this world of magic, she had been so excited. Her life before learning of Puellae Magi and Witches and such had hardly been unpleasant, but it had been, well… Maybe just a little dull. It was safe and kind and warm, but… _lackluster._ Just lacking in the thrum of excitement that she was looking for.

Mami made it seem so glamorous. Dangerous, but glamorous. Madoka's not even sure if that was _how_ Mami wanted to present the life of a Puella Magi, but just the way Mami behaved, on and off the battlefield, Madoka couldn't help but idolize her, and idealize that lifestyle.

Mami was so brave, so beautiful, so elegant. She killed Witches with ease and poise, like taking a knife through warm butter. It wasn't too hard to believe that she was perfect, wasn't too hard to believe that the Puella Magi lifestyle was adventurous, _exciting_ , despite Mami's warnings, despite her admonitions that it really was very dangerous. Maybe Madoka had just been watching too much T.V. lately. But it all seemed as though she had stepped into a fantasy world, and that from now on, her life would be fresh, exciting, new.

She'd not calculated the cost of death until it played out in front of her eyes.

_A scream catches in her throat as she watches flesh torn from flesh, as she watches Mami's head be torn from her body by the Witch. She wants to turn and flee, but her feet are anchored to the ground. She wants to wail, but her throat has stuck shut. She wants to breathe, but her lungs can't remember how._

Madoka…

_What? No-no, she can't be dead. That can't be it. She's just knocked out, that's all. But… But where's her Soul Gem?_

Madoka had lost her nerve. Between Mami's death and Homura's constant injunctions, she'd lost her nerve. She'd never been a particularly bold girl, never been particularly brave. She always hung on to people, never leading, never doing anything more than being the one who followed another's lead.

Madoka had lost her nerve. However, Sayaka hadn't.

"Her Soul Gem turned into a Grief Seed. She became a Witch and died."

Her breath fails her again and suddenly, Madoka can feel gravel digging into her knees. Her legs must have given out after all that long walking— _or maybe her heart just broke, and her body decided to give up too._ "You're…" she can barely find a voice with which to speak, can barely make that voice into anything strong enough to be heard "…You're kidding, right?"

Madoka smiles shakily up at Homura, who gazes blankly back. Homura's never been much of one for jokes, but surely she must be joking now. Right? She has to be. Sayaka… Sayaka can't _really_ be dead. Right?

Homura stares at her for a long time, her narrowed eyes unreadable. A bit of the cloud cover obscuring the moon breaks, and her face is washed white, the still-remaining shadows making the lines on her face seem deeper, darker. The wind makes the electrical lines shake overhead, and catches the ragged banner of her hair. She has a face of stone.

Then…

"It's the truth." Her voice never breaks, never quavers. "That's the final secret of the Soul Gems."

_No. No. No. That can't be right, no, please, Sayaka-chan can't be dead, she can't be a Witch. You're joking, right, Homura-chan? You and Sayaka-chan are just playing a trick, aren't you? Please, this isn't funny. It's a nasty joke. Please stop it. Please get up, Sayaka-chan. Don't just lie in that girl's arms; please get up._

_She can't be dead._

Homura holds out her incandescently glowing Soul Gem before Madoka, the purple light glimmering in the air. Homura's eyes are trained somewhere over the top of Madoka's head. "When the gem is tainted beyond repair and turns completely black, it turns into a Grief Seed, and we become Witches."

_No. That's a lie! It has to be! Sayaka-chan can't be—_

Homura's merciless voice cuts her off. "That's the unavoidable fate of all those who become Puella Magi."

Finally, Madoka finds it in her to get to her feet. "Please…" Her voice shakes. She searches Homura's face for any sign of emotion, for any sign that she might be lying. _This is a really cruel prank, Homura-chan_ —but she's not so sure it's a prank anymore. "It's not true, right?" A scream suddenly wells up in her chest when she's met with silence from all parties, but Madoka can't even find the strength to scream. As fast as she got back to her feet, she finds her fingers digging amongst the gravel once more. "Please?"

After Mami died, Madoka might have lost her nerve, but Sayaka, much braver and stronger than Madoka, went ahead and became a Puella Magi. She made a wish to heal her crush's arm, so he could play the violin again, and swore to become a champion of justice, to protect the innocent from Witches.

Was all of that for nothing?

Sayaka had been determined to be the sort of Puella Magi who could take up Mami's mantle as protector. She had had that fire burning in her heart. She had had a sincere desire for a righteous life, to be a hero, a champion of the weak and helpless.

True, Sayaka had been severely shaken by the revelation that, in the process of contracting, all Puella Magi essentially became living corpses, their soul coming to reside in their Soul Gems. True, she'd been devastated to learn that Hitomi had every intention of making a confession to the two girls' mutual crush. She'd sunk into despair, her behavior becoming nothing short of terrifying. But Madoka was sure she'd overcome it eventually. Sayaka never let losses weigh her down forever; she always tossed off the chains of her sorrow and rose back up. She'd believed that Sayaka would recover her good will, recover her strength and her will to fight against injustice.

But she never did. Madoka knows that now.

Madoka nearly gags on the tears flooding her mouth. _She's dead? She really is? But that's not right. She became a Witch?_ All _Puella Magi become Witches in the end, if they don't die first? But what… But what then…_

_What were any of them fighting for, in the end?_

Sayaka fought against Witches with all her heart, and became on herself.

Mami died fighting against a Witch, but eventually, if she wasn't killed by a Witch, she would have become one too.

And all those Witches that Madoka saw Mami, Homura, Sayaka killing, they were girls once too. They were young girls once, girls with hopes and dreams, and despair that eventually built in their hearts until their very souls cracked and became corrupted.

How many girls were there before Mami? What were their wishes worth? Was it worth their souls? What were their lives worth? Was it worth turning into something base and monstrous? Was it worth spending the rest of their days cursing the humanity that they'd once tried to save, until the day came when another Witch-in-training came to put them out of their misery? Was it worth that?

It can't have been.

_All those wishes, all that death, all that suffering, you're telling me it was worthless? It can't have been! All those girls, their lives have to been worth something! And you're telling me that they were always going to become Witches? And you're telling me that, no matter how much they wanted to protect their family, their friends, they were eventually going to curse them instead?_

_A world like that…_ Another choking sob rises in her throat. Madoka's throat feels sore, and she realizes, startled, that she's been weeping for quite some time. _A world like that shouldn't exist._

Homura and that girl are arguing now, but Madoka doesn't hear a word. She's not sure she cares anymore.

Her best friend is dead. To make it all so much worse, her best friend died because she believed in a cause that turned out to be rotten to the core, and countless other girls found this out too late as well. The monsters Sayaka has been killing, they were girls once, just ordinary girls who were tricked into a life of fantasy, and found that the life they'd been given demanded their soul as payment.

This all seemed like so much fun when Madoka first got involved.

But it doesn't anymore.

All it makes her want to do is tip her head up and scream.

 


	7. this temporary flesh and bone

The night that Kyubey would usually spend scouting for Potentials and looking over the progress of his hatchling Witches has been interrupted by a great commotion on a nearby highway. From his perch atop a construction site where one of his hatchlings thrives, waiting to be culled, Kyubey looks out in the direction of the tumult.

There appears to have been a car wreck—he spies an eighteen-wheeler burning bright and two smaller cars nearby, one overturned and the other bent and twisted by what he recognizes as the weight of the eighteen-wheeler. This does not concern Kyubey greatly—in the grand scheme of things, his hatchlings are far more important than a half dozen or so human lives—but it occurs to him that the cause of the pile-up may have had something to do with a Witch or her Familiars, and so he tears his gaze away from the lovely undulations of the Witch before him, and goes to see what the matter is.

No. There is no trace here of a Witch or her Familiars, but Kyubey did not really expect there to be; it was simply that he could not afford to rule the possibility out. He steps lightly through the ruins, the fire from the truck making his shadow long and vaguely demonic, and reflects that he's not likely to see too many Witches in Mitakihara Town lately.

The truth is, the last of his Puellae Magi has recently hatched, her despair finally causing the egg case of her Soul Gem to crack wide open, so the true form of her soul could finally blossom. He's not run across any with the potential surpass entropy in nearly two weeks. If this keeps up, Kyubey will have to return to Kasamino City, where the glut of human suffering and disorder has bred many Puellae Magi and many Witches in its time.

Puellae Magi. Precious little embryos. Without them, without the glorious waves of energy they give off as despair eats their hearts and replaces it with rot and decay, the whole universe would perish. They don't appreciate the place they have in the universe, can't even conceptualize it with their human brains, but Kyubey understands the importance of these creatures, so he cultivates them with care. Everything he does, every choice he makes as regards a Potential has its purpose.

And yet, the number of suitable Potentials has been decreasing steadily over the years. It used to be that twenty years ago, Kyubey could have made a hundred contracts each year; now, he's lucky to find twenty girls out of the thousands who live here capable of surpassing entropy.

The quality's gone down as well. The Puellae Magi created these days simply don't last long enough in their embryonic states to make truly powerful Witches, not most of them. True, oftentimes a Witch's Familiar lasts long enough to become a Witch herself, but even then, he's been having a harder time meeting his quota than he ever did before.

These humans, even when gifted the advancements granted by use of a Soul Gem, are simply too fragile to take much suffering, physical or mental. Their crude, temporary bodies were never useful for much, apart from fodder for the higher purpose which every living thing in the universe serves, of course. There, the human girls who become embryos and later hatchlings shine like brilliant blue stars. There, and only there, can the transient forms of flesh and bone become something beautiful.

But oh, they're not what they used to be, not at all!

Kyubey continues to traipse about the wreckage. The driver of the eighteen-wheeler is dead; he went flying through his windshield and landed about eight feet away from the flaming wreckage of his vehicle. The glass still embedded in his body gleams like the stars above.

The occupants of the first car Kyubey inspects are also all dead. A trio of college co-eds, splayed about with their perfectly shaven legs and perfectly coiffed hair, except now they're lumpen forms of flesh, badly abused, so twisted that they can barely be recognized as human. Kyubey registers the pungent odor of the alcoholic beverage _beer_ emanating from the mangled form of the driver, as blood drips from her fingernails.

Twitching the long, fluffy tail so made as to appeal to the young pubescent females, Kyubey approaches the final car.

Unlike the truck and the Mercedes that proved a tomb for three college women, this vehicle is a family car. Kyubey just barely makes out the images of a man and a woman in the front seats. Both are quite dead, their bodies already growing cold. The man is draped limply across the steering wheel; the woman's head has nearly been severed from her neck by a shard of shrapnel embedded in the headrest of her chair.

And, nestled in the twisted metal in the back like an unborn child in her womb, lies a little girl.

It's a pity. Alive and uninjured, Kyubey supposes, though he's never had use for such things, that she would be what humans call "pretty." Golden curls—his eyes see the color clearly even in the darkness of night—and smooth, round cheeks. Her sweater is splattered with blood from a great hole in the girl's belly, and her legs are bent beneath her at twin odd, unnatural angles.

Kyubey turns to go. The car he stands in front of now will ignite at any moment—it seems there's some sort of leak in the engine. Though his body is but a transient thing and can be replaced at any time, Kyubey considers caution in this case to be the wisest strategy. Better not to waste his bodies wantonly.

He starts to leave.

"W-wait."

The voice is so faint that, even with his keen ears, Kyubey almost doesn't hear her speak. He turns around, turns around to find that he was wrong. The girl's not dead.

There's blood dripping into her right eye, but still she's seen him. A small, short-fingered hand lifts from her side, trembling. "Help me," she struggles to say, her breathing labored. She likely broke several ribs in the impact; one may have punctured her lung. Blood bubbles up in her mouth, spilling out accompanied by foam. "Please." Her voice rises and cracks. "Please."

Kyubey considers the options. She is on the point of death, and as she is, likely doesn't know that her parents are dead. In the state she's in, if he decides to make a contract with her, he knows exactly the wish this girl will make.

The despair that chokes her heart when she realizes that she could have saved her parents' lives could well make her into a beautiful Witch. She could be a hatchling capable of giving off the energy of a star.

 _Contract with me._ Kyubey's tail twitches; her dull eyes open slightly wider. _Become a magical girl._

"I…"

_Make your wish._

Her face twists, contortions that would be hideous, if Kyubey was any judge of beauty and the lack of it. "I want to live," she croaks. "Please. I want to live."

_Done._

In a more private sector of Kyubey's mind:

_Welcome to the world, my embryo. Become a beautiful hatchling that will give us the energy to save the universe._


	8. In Death's Shadow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the flip-side to this temporary flesh and bone (Chapter Seven). Also, I don't remember if it says how old Mami was when she contracted with Kyubey. But given that she does seem experienced, and that she did, to my eye, look younger in the flashback than she does currently, I'm saying that she contracted at about ten or eleven.

Tomoe Mami finds herself beginning to drift off to sleep in the back of her parents' car. It's as dark in the back seat as it would be in her bedroom; the only light emanates from the occasional street lamp illuminating the highway, and from the moon above, misty behind a curl of cloud. The hour is late enough that she certainly would be in bed, if she was at home.

They've just gotten done with supper at a restaurant with some of her father's friends. Talk ran late and frankly, so did the food. Her parents seemed not to care, and she, as ever, takes her cues from them, but Mami, who had last eaten at lunch time, was quite hungry, waiting in that restaurant, and found herself fidgeting in her chair, running her fingers over the stitching on her skirt while she waited for her food to be brought out. The adults' conversations went completely over her head.

When finally Mami was acquainted with her supper, a steaming trout filet whose warm, inviting aroma made her stomach moan piteously and her mouth salivate like it was suddenly raining, it was all she could do to eat politely. She had to remind herself, again and again, that they were out in public, that she wasn't a little girl anymore whose sloppy manners would be excused and that she had to eat in small bites. _And for heaven's sake, remember to chew._ Still, she finished her meal long before anyone else did, but by that time, it didn't matter. She could sink in her chair and listen to her parents talking in peace, content.

Now, nodding off as she is, she wonders about the math test she has to take tomorrow. She did all of her studying before they left for the restaurant, but really, is she ready? Mami doesn't want to let herself or her parents down. She wants to do well on that test, so she can continue doing well in math class; her grade will be severely affected if she doesn't at least pass it.

 _And you know, that's not the sort of thing I want to be thinking about when I'm trying to sleep._ Mami shifts her weight, all the while ruefully acknowledging that the seat belt tethering her to the seat keeps her from finding a really genuinely comfortable position.

Banishing all thoughts of math tests from her mind, Mami smiles faintly as unconsciousness claims another corner of her mind. All is warm and calm. Her father still carries her back up to their spacious apartment if she falls asleep in the car; _Best not to wake her,_ he'll tell her mother, or so her mother says.

She's just starting to think that, yes, she really could just fall asleep in this car, when suddenly, the breadth of her world is flooded with light.

There is a terrible noise.

Then there is pain.

Then there is nothing.

-0-0-0-

It's still dark when she awakens, slow and uneven and breaking all over. It's dark, but there's the lamplights, and an orange, flickering light that dances off every slick surface it can find. There's a faint crackling, so far away that it may as well be coming from the other side of the world, but other than that, an eerie silence permeates the air.

"Mom?" she croaks, finding that her voice won't rise above that hoarse whisper, no matter how hard she tries. "Dad?"

No answer.

As the minutes wear on, Mami, still trapped in that sluggish, half-aware state of mind, realizes that she's not in her seat. The seat belt isn't strapped around her waist or her chest, and she's not sitting in one of those cushioned seats in the back, but instead in the floorboard. All she can guess is that the seat belt must have come loose at some point and she, asleep, slid down into the floorboard without waking up and without her parents noticing.

 _This won't do._ Knowing that, for her own safety, she really ought to be in the seat whenever the car is moving, Mami tries to get back into her seat.

A few things go wrong.

The most immediately noticeable is the blinding wave of pain radiating from her chest when she tries to stand, that keeps her from moving in any direction at all. A sharp cry of pain tears itself from her throat, and Mami, now wide awake, realizes that there's a hole where the window used to be, that she's nestled in the mangled remains of what was once her parents' car, and that there are two more great behemoths lying out in the dark road, one engulfed in flame.

In short, a car accident. She's been in a car accident.

Almost as soon as wakefulness returns to her in full, it starts to drift away again. Her vision is fuzzy, like she's taken a pair of reading glasses that haven't been cleaned in years, put them on, and has tried to look at the world through them. But what's not fuzzy, not at all, is the continued explosion of pain that seems to want nothing more than to rip her clean apart. The throbbing in her chest is agony, as it is in her legs. There's blood on her sweater, in her hair; she can feel something warm and wet trickling down her cheek, and she knows it's not a tear.

 _Please let someone come. Someone, anyone, please come._ She's trying so hard to keep her eyes open; every impulse in her body tells her to sleep, but Mami just wants to keep her eyes open, to keep her head up, to keep her heart from stopping dead in its tracks. _Please, someone come. Please let an ambulance come. I'm afraid. I'm afraid…_

Despite all her efforts, despite the fear that hurts every bit as broken bones and bleeding cuts, her eyelids droop over clouded amber eyes. _No. No! I can't fall asleep._ But her head tilts to one side, and even as she forces her eyes open again, those so-delicate eyelids feel as though weighted with lead, and the world is shown in pairs, each half fuzzy and indistinct.

And all goes dark again.

Then, she hears something. As if from far away, she hears a small thud, and light footsteps like the tread of some welcome angel, a herald of help to come. But those footsteps are growing fainter.

With a Herculean effort, Mami forces her eyes open. She can only see about five feet in front of her, but she does spy a small form starting to retreat, back into the mists beyond what her blurry eyes can pinpoint.

It's all agony in her limbs, but somehow, almost of its own accord, she reaches out her arm towards the form. "W-wait."

The form turns back around, and perches on the edge of the hole. Mami sees a small white body, and a large, swishing tail. A cat. Despite that, it doesn't quite register to her that a cat can't help her, and still she cries out, breathing labored. "Help me… Please…" Something's bubbling up in her mouth, and her words come out even more slurred than before. "…Help me."

For a split-second, there is silence. Then…

 _Contract with me._ The voice, detached and unconcerned, seems to come from nowhere, and yet from everywhere at once. It fills up Mami's ears, her faulty mind. The voice seems to emanate from her very soul. _Become a magical girl._

Surely she didn't hear correctly. "I…"

_Make your wish._

This 'magical girl' business must have been a mistake on her part; there's no way she could have heard the stranger say that. It slips from her mind almost as soon as she's heard it. What she does latch on to, though, is what the stranger says next.

He's offering to save her life. He'll save her life.

"I want to live," Mami croaks, imploring her savior to save her. "Please. I want to live."

_Done._

There is a flash of light, and all is darkness again, but this time, the pain is gone.

It's only tomorrow, when Mami, newly orphaned, sits at her bedside, only to be interrupted by a catlike thing with a disembodied voice saying _It's time to fight your first Witch_ , that she understands precisely what she's done.

She's not sure it was worth it.


	9. By His Bedside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to andyjay18 at fanfiction.net.

One of Kyousuke's earliest childhood memories involves playing with Sayaka. They were playing by a riverside, and one way or another, Kyousuke ended up falling into the water. When he inevitably got sick from his impromptu dip in the icy waters, Sayaka came to visit him every day, sitting by his bed and apologizing so profusely that eventually Kyousuke had to tell her, not nearly as gently as he should have, he admits now, that saying " _Sorry_ " over and over again wasn't going to make him better.

But he'd been happy for the attention, secretly.

Now, however…

Now, every time Sayaka comes to see him, Kyousuke wishes the earth would swallow him up.

The physical pain in his hand and his legs has since faded. Occasionally Kyousuke will catch a twinge, a momentary lightning bolt, but the painkillers do their work, and soon enough, Kyousuke can't feel it anymore. Sometimes, when he's lying there, in the cold white bed in the cold white room, he can almost believe that his body isn't a mangled wreck, and that he'll be able to play the violin again.

Almost.

Not quite.

All the pretending and almost-believing can't erase the reality that stares him in the face every time he's forced to look at his ruined hand.

 _And_ she _keeps acting like nothing's wrong…_

Kyousuke doesn't like to think of himself as an ingrate. He knows that the time Sayaka spends with him could be spent studying, with their friends or with her family. He knows that she's been neglecting school and her social life to keep him company. And he knows he ought to be grateful that she's spending so much time with him, but that's just the thing. She's spending too much time here.

He tried not to let it bother him at first, the way Kyousuke tries to keep from being bothered by things that pale in comparison to more serious problems. _So she's being clingy. So what?_ he tells himself, while watching yet another episode of _Star Trek_ on the television. But eventually it gets to be too much for him to ignore or brush off, and his stomach churns every time he sees her.

Sayaka comes every day, and stays for hours at a time, longer than even his parents do when they come. She comes so often and stays so long that Kyousuke can't help but breathe a sigh of relief once she has to go home or go to school. Finally, he has a few hours to himself when he doesn't have to talk to anyone or listen to Sayaka go on and on about what life's been like on the outside. Finally, he doesn't have to endure her constant, wounding presence, or her "consolation."

But she always comes back, stays longer every time, refusing to leave no matter what hints Kyousuke drops—practically the only thing that can make Sayaka leave anymore is her parents coming to get her, or a nurse telling her that Kyousuke needs to rest. She doesn't understand that he just wants to be left alone, that he doesn't want her coming around acting like everything is normal and fine when anyone could see that it's _not_. All the bad jokes, all the peppy "You'll get better; I'm sure of it!"'s, all the too-understanding, too-sympathetic ( _How can you understand? When have you ever been in my shoes?_ ) smiles, they're starting to drive Kyousuke just a little batty.

 _I just want time to myself, by myself. How can she not see how uncomfortable she's making me, coming around every day like I'm some toddler that needs to be constantly supervised, or like it wasn't just my body that was broken but my brain too? Does she_ think _I need to be cared for around the clock? Does she think I'm just going to disappear if she doesn't constantly hover over me?_

_Does she really think I'm so weak that I need to be looked after like that?_

And then there are all those CDs.

Again, he tries not to let it bother him at first. Sayaka is clearly oblivious to the fact that there are certain things he wishes to God she'd stop bringing up when she comes to visit him. He knows she's trying to make him feel better (Even if she is going about it the wrong way). But his patience quickly runs out when, once again, no matter how many hints he drops, Sayaka simply doesn't get the message.

He doesn't want to listen to music. He doesn't want to talk about music. He doesn't want the word "music" uttered in his presence, and it goes without saying that "violin" is also a four-letter word. That ought to be obvious. It ought to be obvious to anyone that Kyousuke doesn't want to talk about music. All it does is remind him of what he's lost; how can anyone not see that?

Anyone can see it.

Anyone but Sayaka.

No, she seems to think that acting like nothing's happened will make his mangled bones knit themselves back together again. Sayaka must think that ignoring the injuries will make them go away. It won't. It just makes them hurt.

She tears the wounds open with her smiles and her reassurances and consolations. She breaks his bones over and over again with her constant presence, her gifts, her refusal to leave even when he wants nothing more than to never be looked at by anyone again.

Every time Sayaka walks through the door, it takes Kyousuke more effort not to scream at her to leave.

_Go away! Leave me alone! Can't you see I just want to be left alone?_

_Please…_

_I don't want you to look at me like that…_

_Turn those pity-filled eyes away. I don't need them. I don't want them._

_Please…_

_Just go away…_

_Just for a little while…_


	10. Never Look Back

_I wonder at the fates of all the worlds you left behind._

In this timeline, Kyubey finds out about Homura's time-traveling abilities early on, and says that simple sentence to her, to shake her resolve, Homura has no doubt. She resists the urge to snort as she takes a draught from her steaming cup of plum tea. Rain splatters on her window; water beads slide sluggishly down the glass. She has planning to do, here in the dark with her single lamp (The projector's been acting up, and she doesn't really need it anyways). She doesn't have time to be playing mind games with Kyubey. Not now.

 _Let's see,_ Homura thinks to herself, looking over the map laid out on her coffee table and the markings on it. _Walpurgisnacht appears in…_ this _sector of town, normally._ She taps a fingernail against a red-circled section of the map, holding her porcelain cup in her free hand. _But occasionally she will show up… here_ —her finger shifts further north _—or here_ —now, further west _—instead. I suppose it all depends on where the eye of the storm falls when she arrives._

_And now, to keep Madoka from showing up at the battleground when the day comes._

Homura tries to keep her thoughts occupied on Walpurgisnacht, and planning for the arrival of the great Queen of Witches. As rote and worn-out as these preparations have become, Homura was and is a creature of habit. There's comfort in routine.

But the Incubator's words are, as ever, insidious, sneaking into her brain. _That's how it hooked all of us, after all, with its words. The Incubator always chose its words carefully, chose the ones most likely to haunt us in wakefulness and sleep._

_What did happen to all those Earths?_

Homura sips her tea and leans back into the sofa cushions, her eyes staring out at but not really seeing the rain-soaked world beyond the window. The clock that she knows well ticks in her ear, and she wonders about all those Earths.

There were, true, some times when Homura had left because Madoka had died or been killed ( _without turning into a Witch, even_ ), and simply because of that. However, under most circumstances, she would leave the Earth in a past timeline behind because she could not defeat Walpurgisnacht and Madoka had contracted. Under those circumstances, Walpurgisnacht was the least of Earth's problems when Homura left.

_How did those worlds, all of those worlds, fare under Kriemhild Gretchen? Did the Witch really deliver on her promise of paradise, or did she simply destroy everything under her sphere of influence? Did the Witch of Salvation prove to be one of Destruction instead?_

For a moment Homura wonders. For a moment, she ponders the fates of all those worlds she left behind.

Then, she pulls her mind away from those thoughts abruptly, flinching and drawing a deep breath.

Homura has spent untold months (Years? Decades? She really couldn't say anymore.) telling herself that she can't afford to feel guilty about the things she did, or the things she didn't do. She has to save Madoka. If she lets even a little bit of guilt get out, that crack will make the floodgates burst, and all that will do is render Homura incapable of helping Madoka or anyone else.

 _I have to do this,_ she tells herself, ignoring the way her hands shake. _I have to save Madoka. I can't look back. I just can't._


	11. Meaningless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just for reference, this takes place in one of the past timelines, not the one that we follow over the course of the show.

Miki Sayaka's funeral is today. The word spread round the cafeteria in a hush yesterday, word that though her parents were not allowing anyone but family to attend the wake, they will let her classmates come today, to pay their respects. So long as they're quiet, and will pay proper respect to the dead, they're more than welcome to come. That's not how it goes in every universe, of course, but that's how it seems to be in this one.

Given that Miki Sayaka considered herself dead and worthless since long before her heart stopped beating in her chest, perhaps there isn't much of a point in saying goodbyes to her now. At least, that's how Akemi Homura tends to look at this particular situation. But then, there's a lot about humanity that she's ceased to understand, or never understood at all. This could be that.

As usual, Homura eats alone in a distant corner of the cafeteria, in a booth pressed flush against a window. Rain patters against the glass. The dreary weather outside seems to infect the cafeteria with its own unique melancholy; the usual clamor in the cafeteria is replaced by the occasional bout of whispering among a thick, profound silence.

She nibbles unenthusiastically on umeboshi, barely noticing the hair-curling sour taste and staring off into space broodingly. Homura takes her lunch in silence as usual, without any desire for company. She does her best not to draw attention to herself. She just wants to be left alone.

Mami is dead, beheaded by the greedy maw of the Dessert Witch as she so often is. Sayaka has succumbed to corruption, died, and become Oktavia von Seckendorff. Kyouko has been killed in an unsurprisingly abortive attempt to find some trace of Sayaka in Oktavia; Homura was forced to kill the Witch in full view of Madoka, and now Madoka won't even talk to her anymore…

Another month has gone by in which Homura wasn't able to get anyone to listen to her, to take her seriously. She dreads the idea of having to take on Walpurgisnacht by herself, yet again. She dreads the idea of trying to keep Madoka from making a contract when none of the other Puellae Magi are still alive to help discourage her and Madoka won't even talk to her. _Oh God,_ she groans mentally, pressing her cheek against the cool glass of the window and squeezing her eyes shut with a shuddering breath. _This isn't going to go well._

Then, she picks up the strains of a half-whispered conversation in the booth next to hers.

"…hear about what happened to Miki?"

"Oh, yeah! They found her in a hotel room wearing nothing but her socks."

"That's not what I heard! You've been listening to Fujita-san again, haven't you?"

Homura's lip twists in a painful grimace. _I don't want to listen to this. I don't want to listen to this. She was a thorn in my side, but I don't want to hear it…_

Mercifully, the two students move to a less defamatory topic. "So… Are you going to the funeral?"

"Me? No. I barely even knew her. Why should I go there? And you?"

"Err… maybe. I mean, Miki was our classmate, after all."

Remembering herself, Homura draws a deep breath that only quakes a little. She sits up straight in her chair, brushes her hair out of her face, and pays the conversation going on near her no more mind. But she doesn't continue eating her lunch. Instead, Homura stares down at the contents of her bento box, and counts the beats of her heart, thinking.

The memories are faint and fuzzy, tipped into the sea of memory alongside all information irrelevant to maintaining the façade and the struggle to defeat Walpurgisnacht and save Madoka from her fate. That's the most reliable way to stay somewhat sane, after all, to discard everything that doesn't matter and try to forget about it. But Homura does remember faintly, if she strains her mind, having attended Sayaka's funeral in early timelines.

Even in the first timeline… Well, Homura can't actually remember having known Sayaka in the first timeline. Madoka had gravitated towards Mami and was spending significantly less time with her childhood friend than she used to. Homura may well have not actually met Sayaka in the first timeline, apart from the first day of school when everyone was introducing themselves to her.

It would be more accurate to say that, from the time when they had first met, Homura and Sayaka had never been friends. Sayaka was suspicious of Homura and constantly expressing her dislike of anyone who was secretive or not a "team player." Homura found Sayaka's holier-than-thou attitude and self-righteousness, both of which only grew worse with each timeline, intensely grating. But they were possessed of a shared affection for Madoka, and, like Madoka, Sayaka's fate was in flux; in none of the timelines Homura has visited has Sayaka ever already contracted by the time Homura arrives. So, she in her naïveté thought, perhaps Sayaka could be saved as well.

And in those early timelines, when Sayaka inevitably died, if there was a funeral before the coming of Walpurgisnacht, Homura attended it.

There's not much left she can remember about those funerals. A cold room. The smell of flowers. A woman crying—Sayaka's mother, maybe. The pounding of rain on the roof. Homura doesn't remember her emotions, what she felt to see Sayaka's picture on the bier.

Somewhere along the line, she stopped going. Homura's not sure when, but she thinks it was about the time when she decided that Sayaka wasn't worth saving.

It occurs to Homura, as she picks up her chopsticks and dabs apathetically at her salmon, that neither Kyouko nor Mami were ever given proper funerals. They both tended to die inside a Witch's barrier, the result of that being that they left no body behind. But even when they didn't, those two girls died as they had lived: forgotten. Kyouko had no family left to notice she was gone, and if Mami still had kin, they certainly never made their presence known after her death.

Was Madoka ever given a funeral? Perhaps she might have been in the first timeline, if Walpurgisnacht did not destroy the world and her body survived the great and powerful Queen of Witch's onslaught. But not in most of the others. In most of the others, Madoka had either died in a Witch's barrier or become the Witch of Mercy herself, and presumably destroyed the world. There's not much opportunity for a funeral under those circumstances.

_And was I given a funeral, in any of those timelines? Did anyone ever notice that I had gone missing? Did anyone care? Or did I go out the same way Kyouko and Tomoe Mami did, completely forgotten by the world at large?_

Sayaka… Sayaka is probably the only one of them who has ever gotten a funeral. She almost certainly is.

Homura pops an umeboshi into her mouth and chews hard. She won't be going to Sayaka's funeral, she resolves firmly, for she and Sayaka were not friends and, in all honesty, Homura did not know Sayaka at all beyond knowing of what happened to her once she contracted. Attending the funeral would be meaningless, under those circumstances. Miki Sayaka has enough mourners, has enough recognition of her death; she's the only Puella Magi Homura's ever known to be so privileged. Sayaka's funeral certainly won't suffer for Homura's absence.

And in her heart, in that brittle, ill-used thing, Homura doesn't want any reminder that she once considered Sayaka worth saving.


End file.
